Mercedes-Benz dominates in the Lausitz: pole for Spengler
Klettwitz. Mercedes-Benz turned out to be the benchmark in qualifying for the third DTM round of the season at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz. Among the first ten cars, there are seven cars with the three-pointed star on the bonnet. After three heats in the shoot-out qualifying, Canadian Bruno Spengler secured himself his second pole position of the season with the AMG Mercedes C-Class. The 23-year old completed the 3.478 kilometres long track in 1:18.408 minutes. ?On the track, it is quite narrow here. Therefore, being out in front at the start is all the more important?, Spengler said. Crowd favourite Mika H?kkinen (Mercedes-Benz) from Finland was second, 0.113 seconds down. Third place was occupied by Scottish newcomer Paul di Resta (Mercedes-Benz), who again surprised the opposition with a two-year old car.
For the first time this season, the German DTM record champion Bernd Schneider made it into the final DTM qualifying heat. He will be starting from fourth position on the grid for the race on Sunday at 14.00 h (ARD live from 13.45 h onwards). After his major accident at the Hockenheimring, Alexandre Pr?mat made his comeback in the Lausitz and caused a stir right away. A broken suspension for the best-placed Audi driver in the first qualifying heat brought about a huge effort for his mechanics. The Team Phoenix crew worked quickly, thus allowing the Frenchman to continue his session. He ended up sixth behind Jamie Green with the AMG Mercedes C-Class. The winner of the season opener, Mattias Ekstr?m, will be starting ninth with his Audi A4 DTM behind the two Mercedes-Benz drivers, Alexandros Margaritis from Greece and Daniel La Rosa from Germany. The winner of the previous race, Gary Paffett, was having even more trouble. The British Mercedes-Benz driver only qualified 13th. The two lady racers in the field, Susie Stoddart (Mercedes-Benz) and Vanina Ickx (Audi) qualified 17th and 20th.
After two of ten season rounds, Mattias Ekstr?m (Audi), Paul di Resta (Mercedes-Benz) and Martin Tomczyk (Audi) are jointly leading the points? standings with twelve points each. The race at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz will cover a distance of 153.032 kilometres.
Bruno Spengler (1st grid position, DaimlerChrysler Bank AMG-Mercedes): ?I am very happy with pole position. Today, we have shown that the new car is working. In fact, the performance was already there in the previous races, but unfortunately, we ran out of luck. Here, being in front is important as overtaking is not particularly easy. For tomorrow, we are well prepared. When everything is going perfectly, victory is within reach.?
Mika H?kkinen (2nd grid position, AMG-Mercedes): ?I am very happy being able to start from the front row, but I am not happy with having to start from second place. Tomorrow?s race surely will be an exciting affair for the spectators. Here, we are very strong and we want to turn today?s result into a good classification in the race tomorrow. Our goal is ten points.?
Paul di Resta (3rd grid position, Jawa4u.de AMG Mercedes): ?An excellent qualifying result. I knew that I am quick here, but I hadn?t expected to be that quick. Unfortunately, I wasn?t able to repeat my super time from the second qualifying heat in the third session. Still, I am very happy with the result. My goal for the race definitely is scoring points and when everything is running smoothly, maybe a podium finish is possible again.?
Alexandre Pr?mat (6th grid position, Audi Sport Team Phoenix): ?That is a great qualifying result. I didn?t expect making a comeback like this one month after my major accident. The Mercedes-Benz are very fast, but of course, I will give everything and try to get a result as good as possible. When the start is good, scoring points is possible.?
Mercedes-Benz motorsport director Norbert Haug: ?I didn?t expect things to go that well for us in qualifying. But it is also clear that Audi was handicapped because of the weight. Qualifying result is by no means the race result. The result of our team was good, the system of the DTM is working well. Paul di Resta also had to put in extra weight twice and still is in a remarkable position with that. There are now two new C-Classes in first and second place and four new C-Classes in the top five. Maybe I will have a picture taken of that.?
Audi motorsport director Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich: ?I knew that it would be difficult for us with the additional weight. But I had hoped for better positions of the 2005 and 2006 cars. Alexandre Pr?mat has done a good job. And to defend our honour, one has to say that Mattias Ekstr?m, Timo Scheider and Martin Tomczyk are very closely together. We have made the best out of the situation. Now we will try to get the maximum possible number of points with a good strategy. Audi and Mercedes-Benz have voted for this weight system and now, we have to see that we get the best out of it.?
